If we are to survive and thrive as a species, we must consciously shift our mission from individual survival to species thrival. While there is currently no 12-Step Program for a species “recovering” from 5,000 years of civilization, we are offering a 3-Step plan because frankly, we don’t have time for all twelve steps. The steps are Awareness, Intention and Practice.
Since we are on the cusp of conscious evolution, the first all-important step is to become consciously aware of what science now tells us about the nature of human nature. As we point out in our book, the four fundamental beliefs of scientific materialism have been – inconveniently – disproved by science! When we recognize that so much of who we imagine we are is based on programmed, “invisible” beliefs, we can begin to recognize that this programming is the one thing we have in common. The entire notion of “blame” at that point seems absurd. As the Biblical injunction says, “Forgive them because they know not what they do.”
In this forgiveness and liberation from blame, we can accept responsibility. That is, we can choose to respond differently. Consequently, the next healing step is to make an intentional choice to release obsolete beliefs and divest from the “caterpillar” institutions and mindset, and instead invest in the new butterfly society that is emerging locally and globally. The community of “imaginal cells” that sociologist Paul Ray calls “cultural creatives” has grown in just over ten years from 50 to 70 million adult Americans. We can choose to combine our own mission with that of this new organism, to weave a web of mass construction, so the butterfly can rise as the caterpillar falls.
That brings us to the final step. Now that we know what science is telling us about the true nature of human nature, what do we do about it? How do our lives become different as we come to recognize ourselves as cells in a new organism called Humanity? How do we liberate ourselves from our personal and collective programming of limitation? What practices do we adopt on a daily basis that remind us of who we truly are? Evolution, like Heaven, is not a destination, but a practice.
A miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf. When a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolution.